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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Hannah Goldy
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)After withdrawing from her last three scheduled fights, Goldy now hasn’t fought in almost two years since losing a decision in her August 2019 UFC debut against Miranda Granger. That fight took place at 125 lb, but now Goldy will drop back down to 115 lb where she’s 2-0 in her career with a pair of decision wins. She only has six pro fights to her name (5-1), but she’s gone back and forth between the 115 lb and 125 lb weight classes. She notably has a win over Gillian Robertson, but it came when they were both making their respective pro debuts back in 2016 at 115 lb. Only one of her five career wins came against an opponent who entered with more than two pro wins. Here are the records of her opponents going into her five pro victories: 0-0, 1-0, 2-1, 2-0, and 6-2. Her only career loss came by decision in her UFC debut against Granger.
In that debut, Goldy was outlanded by Granger 61-55 in significant strikes and 77-58 in total strikes. Neither lady attempted a takedown and overall it was a slower paced fight with sporadic action. In a close/boring fight, Granger won a unanimous 30-27 decision.
Following the loss to Granger, Goldy had been scheduled to face Loma Lookboonmee in February 2020, but ended up withdrawing. Then she was booked to face Jessica Penne in March 2021, but tested positive for COVID and was forced to withdraw again. That fight was rebooked for April 2020, but Goldy once again withdrew, so hopefully the 4th time's the charm here.
With only a 61” T-Rex reach, Goldy relies on her legs to strike from distance. She likes to circle away from her opponents while throwing head kicks as she retreats. Only one of her six fights has ended early, which was a R2 KO in her second pro fight and she doesn’t appear to have a ton of power. Since then, she has been to four straight decisions.
She did land a ton of volume on DWCS in 2019 as she outlanded her opponent 141-56 in significant strikes, but it mostly came as Goldy circled away and her opponent just helplessly walked into kicks as she followed Goldy around the cage. That seemed like more of an anomaly than what you should generally expect out of Goldy and she landed less than half that number in her next fight. Goldy notably hasn’t attempted a takedown in her last two fights and doesn’t appear to have any sort of grappling game.
Diana Belbita
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Dropping down to 115 lb for the first time in her career, Belbita actually started off fighting at 132 lb (60 kg) early in her career after turning pro in 2014. Her last 10 fights have all been at Flyweight (125 lb), where she’s gone 6-4 in that stretch, but lost her first two UFC fights. Update: Belbita interestingly weighed in all the way down at 114.5 lb, 10.5 lb lighter than her last fight.
Belbita made her UFC debut in October 2019 against Molly McCann and lost a high-volume lopsided decision where McCann led in significant strikes 113-98 and in total strikes 126-104. McCann also landed 5 takedowns on 14 attempts to go along with a submission attempt and nearly four minutes of control time. Belbita also landed a takedown on her only attempt. Late in the second round, Belbita was notably deducted a point for a blatant fence grab that prevented a takedown. Following the deduction the ref put the two women back in the position along the fence and at that point McCann was able to take Belbita down and nearly finish the fight with ground and pound. Belbita showed off her toughness simply surviving the beating, but looked helpless off her back other than that. McCann went on to win a rare unanimous 30-25 decision.
In her most recent fight, Belbita took on a one-dimensional Armbar specialist in Liana Jojua and curiously decided to engage in the clinch just 15 seconds into the fight after landing 4-5 clean punches. After a minute spent along the cage in the clinch, Belbita foolishly took Jojua down and ended up right where Jojua wanted the fight—on her back looking for an Armbar submission. Jojua almost immediately snatched Belbita’s arm and worked to find the right angle to finish the fight, which she did shortly thereafter. Belbita’s fight IQ has to be in serious question after doing everything wrong in that fight and abandoning her massive advantage on the feet.
Belbita is now 13-6 as a pro with 10 of her career wins coming early, including six KOs and four submissions. Interestingly, all four of her submission wins came by R2 Armbar. Her last four wins all came early, with two of those submissions coming over that period. Four of her six career losses have also ended early, all by submission, including three R1 Armbars and a second round Guillotine Choke. So in total, 8 of her 19 fights have ended with a submission and seven of those came by Armbar (4-3). Fortunately for her, Goldy doesn’t appear to have much of a ground game and has never won by submission. Belbita looks far more durable on the feet and has never been knocked out, although we’ll see how her chin holds up after dropping down to Strawweight.
Fight Prediction:
Belbita will have a 3” height advantage and massive 7” reach advantage.
Belbita is far more willing to brawl and we expect her to consistently push forward as Goldy circles away. A key for Belbita will be to cut off the Octagon opposed to following Goldy around. If she can successfully do that then she should be able to force Goldy to stand and trade with her. However, trusting that Belbita will come in with a smart game plan has proven to be a fatal flaw in the past, so we’re hesitant to trust her. If Belbita does end up following Goldy around the Octagon, opposed to cutting off the cage, it’s possible Goldy outlands her way to a decision here as she throws head kicks to make up for her lack of reach. That’s really the only way we see Goldy winning this fight, as Belbita should have the advantage in a boxing match or on the ground. With Goldy appearing less willing to stand and trade, we see this fight likely going the distance and like Belbita to pull off the upset. Considering Goldy hasn’t fought in almost two years and both women are moving down a weight class, it will be important to monitor how they each look at weigh-ins.
Belbita’s moneyline at +110, decision line at +175 and round two submission line at +3400 are the three bets we are most interested in. You can also consider her +750 KO line. Note: Her moneyline has been coming down all week, so it’s probably too late to get much value in it at this point.
DFS Implications:
On paper this looks like a great matchup for Goldy to put up a high striking total as she averages the third highest number of significant strikes landed at 6.53 per minute, while Belbita leads the slate in strikes absorbed at 6.49 per minute. Then you factor in that Belbita also averages 5.81 significant strikes landed per minute (6th highest on the slate) and this looks like a potential explosion spot. Our concern is that Goldy’s striking numbers are vastly inflated by her DWCS performance against a non-UFC level talent who has lost 3 of her last 4 fights and never competed again following that 2019 loss. Goldy landed 141 significant strikes in that fight (9.4/min) but then landed just 55 (3.67/min) in her UFC debut against Miranda Granger, who’s now 1-2 in the UFC. It’s entirely possible that Belbita’s aggressiveness will force Goldy into another high striking total, but she hasn’t shown herself to be an inherently aggressive fighter. When you combine that with her lack of grappling (0 takedown attempts in her last two fights), Goldy will be reliant on either landing a finish, which looks unlikely, or putting up a massive defensive striking total, which is somewhat possible. She’s done nothing to really impress us on tape and will be the smaller fighter in this matchup so we’re not overly confident in her. She’s also seen a huge line move against her and no one appears to be buying Goldy right now. She opened the week on Monday as a -200 favorite, but that was bet down to -130 by Tuesday when DraftKings released their pricing dn this fight is now a straight pick ‘em. The odds imply she has a 50% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1. Now “overpriced” relative to her odds, Goldy makes for an interesting leverage play on both sites, but especially on FanDuel where the scoring better fits her fighting style.
Belbita has decent hands but lacks the fight IQ to feel good about playing her. Basically all she had to do to win her last fight against a one-dimensional submission specialist was to keep the fight standing and she voluntarily engaged in the clinch just 15 seconds into the first round which eventually led to her demise shortly thereafter. Goldy looks like a less dangerous opponent, as she doesn’t appear to be any sort of submission threat, but Belbita will need to avoid following Goldy around the Octagon and getting kicked in the face. She should be able to easily outbox Goldy if she can successfully control the distance and also has the potential to outgrapple her. However, if Goldy continues to circle away from contact then this could end up as a lower-volume decision if Belbita is unable to effectively cut her off. If that happens then neither of these two will be useful in DFS regardless of who wins. Goldy’s last two opponents landed just 56 and 61 significant strikes, so we haven’t seen anyone put up a huge number on her, albeit with a very limited sample size. With that said, Belbita appears to be a better striker than those two opponents and we do expect her to top those past results. Priced at $7,900 on DraftKings and $14 on FanDuel, she definitely has a chance to return value here, with the potential to score from both striking and grappling. With 77% of her career wins coming early, she also has somewhat of a chance to land a finish, although Goldy has never been finished in six pro fights for what it’s worth. The odds imply Belbita has a 50% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #10
Sijara Eubanks
9th UFC Fight (4-4)Eubanks had been scheduled to face Priscila Cachoeira here, but Cachoeira withdrew and Reed stepped in on a little over three week’s notice.
Dropping down to 125 lb for the first time since 2018 where she previously beat Roxanne Modafferi and Lauren Murphy in decisions in her first two UFC fights, Eubanks has bounced back and forth between 135 lb and 125 lb throughout her career, but the majority of her fights have been at 135 lb. After winning her first two UFC fights at 125 lb, Eubanks moved up to 135 lb in a rematch against Aspen Ladd (from their Invicta days), which ended with the same result as their first fight—a decision loss for Eubanks. Despite starting 2-0 at 125 lb in the UFC and then losing at 135 lb, Eubanks stayed at Bantamweight (135 lb) and lost another decision, this time to Bethe Correia. Undeterred, Eubanks stayed at the higher weight class despite her struggles. She then won a pair of decisions against Sarah Moras and Julia Avila before losing a pair of decisions to Ketlen Vieira and Pannie Kianzad most recently.
Now 2-4 at 135 lb in the UFC, Eubanks is dropping back down to 125 lb for the first time since 2018. Her only career loss at 125 lb came against Katlyn Chookagian in a decision in her second pro fight. She also went 3-0 at 125 lb during a run on The Ultimate Fighter in 2017, but all three of those fights were recorded as exhibition bouts so they don’t show up on her official record.
It appears to be a tough cut for her to get down to 125 lb, but when she’s done it she’s had great success. With that said, Eubanks notably almost missed weight at 135 lb in her last fight and required the towel to hit the mark, so now moving down to 125 lb it will be important to monitor her closely at weigh-ins. Update: She made weight with no issues, actually coming in a pound under the limit and looked strong.
A decision machine, Eubanks’ last nine fights have all gone the distance and the only two fights of her career to end early were a pair of R1 KOs in her first three pro fights. Those came against very inexperienced opponents in 1-3 Gina Begley and 1-2 Amberlynn Orr.
Eubanks throws a moderate amount of volume at times, but has never been a sustained high-volume striker. The most significant strikes she has ever landed in a fight is 85, and she’s failed to land more than 69 in her last three matches. She does typically tack on a couple takedowns, as the only opponent she failed to get down at least once was linebacker Ketlen Vieira. Eubanks has landed 15 takedowns in her other seven fights with at least two in six of those.
Elise Reed
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut in just her 5th pro fight, Reed is making a habit out of stepping into big fights with limited experience. After making her 2019 pro debut at Atomweight (105 lb), Reed won the Cage Fury FC Vacant Strawweight Championship belt in just her second pro fight, which doesn’t really say much about the Cage Fury Women’s Strawweight division if they’re pulling Atomweights from other organizations with one pro fight of experience to compete for their belt (and win it).
Reed won the CFFC belt as a sizable underdog against a much taller opponent. Reed was able to use her movement and quickness to outland her way to a close decision win despite being taken down four times. Reed then successfully defended the belt twice, initially in another close decision win over a grappler and then most recently with a second round ground and pound TKO.
With a Taekwondo background, Reed is a pure striker who relies more on volume than power. She has good movement and quickness, but doesn’t add anything in the grappling department. She’s active off her back, as she’s constantly throwing strikes and trying to reverse the position.
Reed has won all four of her pro fights, with a pair of decisions to go along with two TKOs. However, the first TKO win came at Atomweight in her first pro fight against an opponent fighting for the first and only time.
Fight Prediction:
Eubanks will have a 1” height advantage and 5.5” reach advantage.
A BJJ black belt, Eubanks will have a commanding advantage on the ground in this fight. Coming down from Bantamweight, she will also have a noticeable size advantage against the former Atomweight in Reed. We expect Eubanks to look to get the fight to the ground quickly and to control Reed on the mat for as long as she can. While this has the potential to be the type of mismatch that can turn a decision machine like Eubanks into a finisher, we still think this more likely than not goes the distance. With that said, there’s certainly a far greater chance than normal that Eubanks can get a finish here either through ground and pound or with her first ever career submission win.
We don’t see a ton of value here and we wish some of the Eubanks props were a little wider. It’s certainly possible she comes out and simply overpowers Reed and gets an early finish, but with nine straight decisions we’re not willing to bet on that with the odds available. You can take the safer options of betting the fight goes the distance at -122 or “Eubanks WIns by Decision” at +135, or simply pass on this fight. If you want to take a stab on something wider you can also consider Eubanks’ R1 win line at +430 and just hope this is a complete mismatch.
DFS Implications:
Eubanks has shown a decent DraftKings floor in her decision wins with scores of 100, 85, 93 and 83, but hasn’t been a fighter to produce really big scores. With that said, this is the type of spot where we often see UFC veterans go off, going against UFC newcomers filling in after someone drops out. Eubanks will have clear grappling and power advantages, but could struggle to chase Reed down at times. Overall it’s a high-variance spot with a wide range of outcomes, but we expect Eubanks to score better on DraftKings where she put up 100 points in her last grappling-heavy decision win, which scored just 85 points on FanDuel. We don’t see her returning value on FanDuel without a finish and even on DraftKings she would need an absolutely dominating ground performance to be useful at her high price in a decision. That will leave her more or less reliant on landing her first finish since her third pro fight back in 2016 to remain in play for DFS. The odds imply she has a 75% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and a 16% chance it comes in R1.
Reed has shown she can land a high amount of volume in space, but has struggled with being controlled for periods of time in her career, which has limited her striking averages. Her Taekwondo fighting style involves tons of movement and kicks so if she can stay out of Eubanks’ grasp there’s always a chance she could point her way to victory. Reed will also throw up strikes off her back, which could result in a higher than expected overall striking total, but with few of those registering as significant. At her bottom-of-the-barrel price tag, Reed could potentially serve as value play if she can land a ton of strikes and win a decision even if she doesn’t put up a huge score. With that said, the odds are stacked against her and Eubanks will be hungry for a win after dropping two in a row. We’d be very surprised to see Reed pull off the upset, but it makes sense to have some level of exposure in tournaments as she projects for single digit ownership and the odds imply she has a 25% chance to win, a 12% chance it comes early and a 5% chance to get a first round finish.
Fight #9
Julio Arce
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a 20 month layoff following a decision loss to Hakeem Dawodu, Arce had been scheduled to face Timur Valiev back in February but ended up withdrawing from the fight. Arce has now lost two of his last three fights with both of those losses ending in decisions. His last two wins both came early, with a R3 Head Kick KO against Julian Erosa, who’s been knocked out five times in his career, and a R3 Rear-Naked Choke win against Daniel Teymur, who went 1-4 in the UFC with his last three losses all ending early.
Arce has never been knocked out in his 20 pro fights, with his only early loss resulting from a 2016 R3 Guillotine Choke against Brian Kelleher before either of them joined the UFC. His other three career losses have all gone the distance. Of his 16 pro wins, four have ended in KOs, five by submission and seven in decisions. A patient fighter, only 2 of his 20 fights have ended in the first round—one of those came in his first pro fight back in 2012 and the other was in his sixth pro fight in 2014. His last 14 fights have all made it out of the first round, with 11 of those reaching the third round and seven going the distance. All five of his UFC fights have made it to the third round with three going the distance.
Moving down to 135 lb for the first time since 2016, Arce started his career at Bantamweight (135 lb), but moved up to Featherweight (145 lb) in 2016 following his submission loss to Kelleher. His last 10 fights have all been up at Featherweight so it will be interesting to see how he looks after dropping back down. He went 8-2 at Bantamweight to start his career, with both losses coming against Brian Kelleher in consecutive fights. During that time, Arce landed a pair of knockouts to go along with two submission wins and four decision victories, but all four of those finishes came in his first seven pro fights, so it’s fair to wonder about the talent level of his opponents.
Arce has landed one takedown in each of his last three matches, but failed to land any in his three fights prior to that. He does own a solid 93% takedown defense, and the only time he’s ever been taken down came in his UFC debut against Dan Ige, who was only able to get him down once. So it would be surprising to see Ewell land any takedowns in this next fight.
Andre Ewell
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Ewell is looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Chris Gutierrez, who badly tore up Ewell’s legs. He’s now been to the judges in three straight fights (2-1), with both of those wins ending in split-decisions.
Ewell has yet to finish an opponent early in the UFC. All four of his wins have come by decision (three split), while two of his three losses have been by third round finish—a 2018 R3 Rear-Naked Choke against Nathaniel Wood and a 2019 R3 KO against Marlon Vera. He does have 11 finishes on his record, but eight of those came in the “Gladiator Challenge” whatever that is.
The only time he’s ever been knocked out came in his second most recent loss when Marlon Vera finished him in the third round of their 2019 match after slowing him down with leg strikes. He’s been submitted three times, with a 2018 R3 Rear-Naked Choke against Nathaniel Wood and then twice prior to joining the UFC. A southpaw fighter, Ewell has a very wide stance and long skinny legs that make him very vulnerable to leg strikes.
Similar to Arce, all seven of Ewell’s UFC fights have made it to the third round, with five going the distance. His last fight before joining the UFC also made it to the third round, making that eight straight matches that have seen the third round.
Ewell has landed just two takedowns in his seven UFC fights, and is primarily just a striker. After getting taken down seven times himself in his first three UFC fights, he’s only been taken down twice in his last four matches.
Fight Prediction:
Ewell will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Neither one of these two are the most exciting to watch and 100% of their combined 12 UFC fights have made it to the third round with eight of those going the distance. So it goes without saying (but we’ll drive it home anyways), both of Ewell’s early losses in the UFC have come in the third round, as have both of Arce’s UFC early wins. Ewell is the slightly more active striker and we expect him to come out ahead in strikes as he utilizes his significant reach advantage, which should give him the edge if this fight goes the distance. While Ewell’s last four wins have all come at the hands of the judges, three of Arce’s last four victories ended early. We’re expecting a close, slower paced fight that once again sees a third round, with both guys looking to push the action late as they try to either land a finish or win a tight decision. We like Ewell’s chances to pull off the upset, but this should be a close one with a decent amount of uncertainty in the scorecards.
Our favorite bet here is the “Fight Ends in R3” at +900. We also like Ewell’s moneyline at +180, his decision line at +310, his R3 win line at +2400 and his R3 submission line at +5000.
DFS Implications:
Arce has done little to show he can return value on DraftKings at this skyhigh price tag and his two finishes in the UFC were good for DK/FD scores of 90/112 and 76/99. So he has done better on FanDuel, but still has failed to put up really big scores in the pair of third round finishes. So you’re likely relying on a finish in the first two rounds if you play him in DFS and Ewell has only been finished in the first two rounds once in his career, which came in a 2017 R1 Rear-Naked Choke. Arce has never landed more than one takedown in a UFC fight or more than 74 significant strikes. The main reason to consider playing him is that he projects to go very low owned due to his price. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Ewell has yet to show any sort of DraftKings ceiling so far in the UFC, as he’s scored 81, 63, 59, and 68 DK points in his four UFC wins. His style does lend itself more towards the FanDuel scoring system where he’s totaled 118, 77, 85 and 76 points, but he’s still only put up one big score and he required eight takedowns defended and 123 significant strikes landed to do that. We think this is another tough spot for him to score well, as he’s going against an opponent who has never been knocked out and has never absorbed more than 55 significant strikes. While Ewell does have 11 early wins on his record, those all came prior to joining the UFC against a lower level of competition on the regional scene. The arguments for playing him in DFS are that he’s cheap and will be low owned, but he’ll likely need all of the other dogs around him to fail to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #8
Jordan Williams
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Well, well, well...so after we were all told that Jordan Williams can’t cut weight because he’s a Type 1 diabetic, he’s now miraculously moving down to 170 lb from 185 lb in his second pro fight after losing a decision in his October 2020 UFC debut. Okay, so we likely all had the same reaction right? Apparently he’s been undergoing some sort of new stem cell treatment that has helped his condition and allowed him to make the weight cut he previously didn’t think was possible. Bully for him.
He did fight at 170 lb to start his career from 2014-2016, however after getting knocked out in the first round by Dwight Grant in 2016 he took nearly two years off and returned in 2018 at Middleweight (185 lb) where he’s been fighting undersized ever since. He was always small at Middleweight (185 lb) and tipped the scales at just 181 and 182 pounds in his last two fights, so theoretically the move down to Welterweight (170 lb) could be a huge improvement for him. When he was originally fighting at Welterweight, he went 5-2 to start his career with six of those fights ending early, including five in the first round. Keep in mind that was when he was just getting started and the records of his opponents coming in were 2-4, 4-3, 4-1 (L), 0-1, 3-7, 13-6 and 5-1 (L). So four of those five wins came against opponents with losing records, meaning it’s hard to take too much away from that stretch other than the fact he was knocked out twice in the first round. In fairness, one of those was against UFC fighter Dwight Grant who specializes in knocking people out and has five R1 KOs among his 11 career wins.
Williams’ UFC debut against Nassourdine Imavov didn’t go exactly as he had planned it and ultimately ended in a sloppy decision loss. Imavov landed an inadvertent headbutt and a vicious knee to the groin in the first round of that fight, which appeared to slow Williams down from the very beginning. There was also another clash of heads in the third round that Williams took the worst of. Every time Williams shot for a takedown in that fight, Imavov looked for a Guillotine Choke Submission and looked close to completing it at times. Imavov finished ahead in significant strikes 68-30 and in total strikes 81-62. He landed just one of eight takedowns while Williams failed to land any of his three attempts. Both guys were absolutely exhausted late in the fight, so it will be interesting to see how Williams’ cardio holds up at 170 lb. You can’t question Williams’ heart and he reportedly suffered a broken nose and orbital in his debut along with a “cracked” vertebrae, which doesn’t sound awesome.
Williams is now 9-4 as a pro with eight of his nine wins coming early, including seven KOs and one submission. Five of those finishes have come in the first round, one occurred in the second and two came in round three. While he notably has never been submitted, he does have a pair of R1 KO losses on his record, although they occurred back in 2014 and 2016. His other two career losses both came by decision, both in his last three fights.
It will be essential to monitor Williams before, during and after weigh-ins. We can’t speak to the medical specifics involved here, but clearly this makes for a higher variance spot than normal. There’s also probably a higher chance than normal that something goes wrong with the weight cut and the fight gets canceled, but hopefully it doesn’t come down to that, fingers crossed.
Mickey Gall
9th UFC Fight (5-3)After getting beat up in a decision loss to Mike Perry in June 2020, it’s now been over a year since Gall last fought. Gall has terrible cardio, bad striking and overrated submission skills. With that said, he still qualifies as a “submission specialist” by default considering he’s never knocked out an opponent, but does have five submission wins on his record. Despite turning pro in 2015, he only has nine pro fights to his name with him winning six of those. He won his first four fights with submissions, with the first three all ending in three minutes or less and the fourth ending in R2. Interestingly, he made his UFC debut in his just second pro fight back in 2016, so he really didn’t have much time to develop before being thrust onto the biggest stage. With that said, his first three opponents had never fought professionally before, which is crazy to think the UFC was allowing guys to make their pro MMA debuts in the UFC back then. So only two of Gall’s five career submission wins have come against an opponent who’s ever fought professionally before. Of his three losses, two went the distance, but he was also knocked out by Diego Sanchez in 2019 (red flag).
In his fight against Mike Perry, Gall circled the Octagon trying to keep his distance and use his length. He narrowly led in significant strikes in the first round 21-20, but it was still Perry who did more damage, controlled the action and landed a takedown with ground and pound to close the round. The judges all gave the round to Gall, but we still thought Perry could have won it. Regardless, Perry easily won the next two rounds as he beat up Gall for the remainder of the fight and won a unanimous decision. He nearly finished Gall at the end of the second round as he dropped him with 20 seconds left on the clock, but Gall was able to narrowly survive, as he was saved by the bell. Perry finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 76-55 and in total strikes 103-59, while landing his only takedown attempt and defending all six of Gall’s attempts. Perry also led in control time 5:44 to 0:51. That’s notably Perry’s only win in his last five fights.
Gall is now 2-3 in his last five fights, with three of those fights ending in decisions. His last finish was a2018 69 second first round submission win over George Sullivan, who’s no longer in the UFC and has now gone 1-4 with a No Contest in his last six fights. Gall’s other win in his last five fights came in a decision against Salim Touahri, who went 0-3 in the UFC before being released. In Gall’s 2019 R2 KO loss against Diego Sanchez, he claimed he gassed out due to kidney failure for what it’s worth. Regardless of the cause, Gall had nothing left in the second round. Sanchez outlanded Gall 56-23 in significant strikes and 61-35 in total strikes, while landing all four of his takedown attempts and amassing nearly six minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just over nine minutes.
Gall has been dominated in all three of his career losses and has never beaten anyone decent. He generally looks bad after the first round and appears more prone to being finished in the back halves of fights. He’s one of just four fighters on this card who has absorbed more significant strikes in his career than he’s landed, with just 2.55 significant strikes landed per minute to 3.65 absorbed. Despite being a “submission specialist” he only averages 1.2 takedowns landed per 15 minutes and has only totaled two in his last five fights. He’s also only landed more than one takedown once in his career, which was when he landed two in a 2016 match.
Fight Prediction:
Gall will have a 1” height advantage, but Williams will have a 1” reach advantage and is dropping down from 185 lb.
Mickey Gall is terrible. There, we said it. Anytime he’s faced even remotely decent competition in his career he’s been dominated and we fully expect him to lose this fight. Williams’ medical condition does add some level of uncertainty, but we expect him to control this fight on the feet and likely knock Gall out. It wouldn’t surprise us to see that happen early, but Gall definitely looks more vulnerable later in fights so a mid to late round KO would also make sense. Five of Williams’ last six fights also notably made it out of the first round, but he did knock out Gregory Rodrigues in the first round of his second most recent match. So it’s hard to say when it will happen, but give us Williams by KO in this one.
Our favorite bet here is “Williams Wins by KO” at +240. You can try to guess when it will come with his R1 win line at +430, or his R2 and R3 KO lines at +1000 and +1300, but it’s more or less a crapshoot. You can also consider “Fight Ends in Submission” at +300 as a hedge.
DFS Implications:
This looks like a great buy-low spot on Williams. He got mangled in his UFC debut, but showed his toughness as he battled through a broken nose, orbital and vertebrae. Now he’s dropping down a weight class where he should be more competitive and gets an easier opponent. Williams has proven himself to be a finisher, with eight of his nine career wins coming early and with five of those ending in the first round. He’ll gladly take part in a brawl and showed he can rack up strikes when he was on DWCS. He also has an 88% takedown defense, which should further boost his FanDuel score against a “submission specialist” in Gall who went 0 for 6 on takedowns in his last fight. Williams quietly has a chance to lead the slate in scoring if he can tie it all together, on top of the fact that he projects to go low owned. So overall we love this spot for tournaments, just keep in mind Williams is still unproven at the UFC level and is a Type 1 diabetic who’s now moving down a weight class after undergoing experimental stem cell treatment, so overall this remains a high-variance spot. The odds imply he has a 61% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Gall padded his early UFC record with submission wins against a pair of fighters that had never fought professionally before and then landed two more submissions against questionable opponents who are no longer in the UFC. He’s never defeated a decent opponent and has never knocked anyone out, which generally leaves him reliant on landing submissions to win fights as he only has one career decision win. Williams has notably never been submitted, despite his last opponent finishing with four official attempts. We expect Gall to be somewhat overowned as not many people were impressed by Williams in his debut. We’ve already seen the line move in Gall’s favor, which should further add to that. Gall scored just 67 DraftKings points in his lone decision win and lacks the striking volume to score well without a finish. He has shown a solid ceiling when he can land submissions, which is really what you’re playing him for if you do decide to have any exposure. Our only other justification for playing any Gall is that Williams is moving down a weight class and we don’t know for sure how he’ll look, which widens the range of potential outcomes in this fight. With that said, we like Williams to knock Gall out here, but the odds imply Gall has a 39% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #7
Ian Heinisch
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Coming off a grappling-heavy decision loss to Kelvin Gastelum, Heinisch was taken down six times on 14 attempts while landing just one of his six attempts. That low-volume grappling battle finished with Gastelum ahead 38-27 in significant strikes, while Heinisch led in total strikes 56-51. However, Gastelum also led in control time 6:50-1:11 and won a unanimous decision.
Prior to that, Heinisch landed a 74 second R1 KO of Gerald Meerschaert in June 2020. Heinisch had two scheduled fights against Brendan Allen fall through in between those last two fights, after Heinisch withdrew from each (one undisclosed & one due to COVID). Prior to knocking out Meerschaert, Heinisch lost a pair of decisions after winning two decisions to start his UFC career.
Heinisch has a wrestling background, but has only landed more than a single takedown in one of his last seven fights, which came in 2019 when he landed three against Omari Akhmedov. He’s been prone to getting taken down himself, as his six UFC opponents have combined to take him down 19 times. And he’s been taken down at least twice in all five of his decisions.
With a 14-4 pro record, the only time Heinisch has ever been finished early came in the first round of a 2017 LFA match against Markus Perez via an Arm-Triangle Submission. Half of Heinisch’s 14 career wins have been by decision, while he also has five knockouts to go with a pair of submissions. Six of his seven early wins have come in the first round, and all but one of his 18 pro fights have either ended in the first round (7) or gone the distance (10). The one exception was a 2018 R2 KO win. After losing three of his last four fights, it will be essential for Heinisch to get a win here to secure his spot in the UFC.
Nassourdine Imavov
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)After winning six straight fights from 2017 to 2020, Imavov is coming off his first loss in almost four years. Both of those losses ended in decisions and the only time Imavov has ever been finished resulted from a 2016 R1 Guillotine Choke. Outside of those three losses, he’s won his other nine pro fights, with three KOs, four submissions and a pair of decision wins. All 12 of his pro fights have either ended in the first round (8) or gone the distance (4).
Imavov notably fought most of his career at 170 lb before moving up to Middleweight (185 lb) when he joined the UFC. This will just be his fourth fight at Middleweight, where he’s gone 2-1 with a pair of decisions and a 2019 R1 Rear-Naked Choke win in his only pre-UFC fight at Middleweight.
Imavov’s UFC debut against Jordan Williams ended in a sloppy/dirty decision. Imavov landed an inadvertent headbutt and a vicious knee to the groin in the first round of that fight, which looked to slow Williams down from the start. There was also another clash of heads in the third round, which Williams definitely took the worst of. Every time Williams shot for a takedown in that fight, Imavov looked for a Guillotine Choke Submission and looked close to completing it at times.
In his recent decision loss, we saw Hawes spend the majority of the fight pushing Imavov up against the cage and trying to take him down. That was a little surprising after Hawes knocked out Jacob Malkoun 18 seconds into his October UFC debut, but it just shows the respect Hawes had for the power of Imavov. Hawes was clearly compromised late in the match as Imavov had him on wobbly legs and nearly finished him. So Imavov clearly has power in his hands and showed a willingness to shoot for takedowns in his prior UFC debut.
Fight Prediction:
Imavov will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
After seeing Imavov get controlled by Phil Hawes for essentially the entire fight in his last match, it would make sense for Heinisch to come in with a similar grappling-heavy game plan based on his wrestling background. Heinisch is also a powerful striker, who just like Imavov has never been knocked out in his career, and we think his wrestling background will help win him a decision here as long as he can safely navigate the defensive submission attempts of Imavov. Heinisch is desperate for a win and he’ll likely want to take the path of least resistance to get a victory and partaking in a striking battle doesn’t appear to be that. Working against him, Heinisch has just an 18% takedown accuracy so the toughest part for him may simply be getting the fight to the ground. Heinisch also hasn’t been very impressive outside of his one early knockout win, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him lose again. Both of these guys have been the most dangerous in the first round, so if it does end early, look for that to happen in the first five minutes and otherwise there’s a good chance it goes the distance. This feels close to a coinflip, but we’ll say Heinisch wins if he can get the fight to the mat but Imavov pulls off the upset if he can keep it standing.
We’re not overly excited about the lines in this fight and we’re just taking two small dart throws at “Fight Ends in R1” at +340 and “Fight Ends in R1 Submission” at +1500.
DFS Implications:
Heinisch has never scored well outside of his one early finish in the UFC. His two decision wins were good for just 67 and 77 DraftKings points. It’s slightly possible, albeit unlikely, that he could put on a completely smothering grappling decision win and sneak above 100 DK points if he can put up a huge control time number, but he’s only landed more than one takedown once in his last seven fights, has a putrid 18% takedown accuracy and has never topped 58 significant strikes in a match. Now he gets an opponent who’s never been knocked out and has only been submitted once, so this doesn’t look like a great spot for Heinisch to get the finish he would likely need to score well. So while we do like Heinisch a little more on DraftKings than FanDuel, we’re not really excited about playing him on either site and he likely needs a finish to score decently. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Imavov is in a similar position to Heinisch in the sense that we haven’t seen him score well in decisions, but while Heinisch makes for a slightly better DraftKings play based on his grappling potential, Imavov makes for a better FanDuel play based on his grappling defense. We expect him to be defending takedowns and looking for defensive submissions, which could allow him to sneak into winning FanDuel lineups as a value play depending on what the other dogs do. In Imavov’s debut, he scored just 74 DraftKings points but totaled 96 points on FanDuel with the help of three takedowns defended and four submission attempts. Outside of serving as a potential value play on FanDuel in a decision win, Imavov is less likely to score well without a finish on DraftKings. He notably has never finished an opponent beyond the first round and appears to be a boom or bust fighter in a tough spot to land an early win against an opponent in Heinisch who has never been knocked out and has only been submitted once. The odds imply Imavov has a 42% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #6
Punahele Soriano
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Undefeated as a pro, only one of Soriano’s eight opponents has been able to make it past the first round with him, as he has five first round KOs and two first round submission wins in his eight fight career. Somehow Jamie Pickett was able to go three full rounds with Soriano on DWCS in 2019, but Soriano still cruised to a lopsided unanimous decision as he outlanded Pickett 47-36 in significant strikes and 106-37 in total strikes while landing three of his four takedown attempts. Soriano was visibly shaken and disappointed that he didn’t get the finish on DWCS and promised to do better in the future. Even though the fight went the distance, it was still enough to land Soriano a UFC contract, where he’s since knocked out his first two UFC opponents in the first round.
Soriano is a violent striker and was also an All-American collegiate wrestler, so he has his wrestling to fall back on when things get hairy. However, he’s said he uses his wrestling to keep fights on the feet so he can look for knockouts. Soriano is extremely dangerous with his hands as he throws sledgehammer punches. He’s impressively landed four knockdowns in his first two UFC fights, with a ridiculous/unsustainable average of 0.49 knockdowns per minute so far in his short UFC career.
He’s coming off an impressive win over Dusko Todorovic after defeating a helpless Oskar Piechota in his 2019 UFC debut. Soriano didn’t fight at all in 2020 as he battled injuries following his UFC debut. He had been scheduled to face Eric Spicely in March 2020 and Anthony Hernandez in May 2020, but was forced to withdraw from both fights. The Hernandez matchup was rebooked for June 2021, but that time Hernandez withdrew after suffering a hand injury and Soriano was then matched up with a tougher opponent in Brendan Allen.
Brendan Allen
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Allen bounced back from a November 2020 R2 KO loss to Sean Strickland with a first round submission win over Karl Roberson this past April. Allen had that submission win teed up for him against the one-dimensional kickboxer Roberson who was previously 9-3 with all three of his career losses ending in submissions. It came as absolutely no surprise that after attempting to outbox Strickland and paying for it with his consciousness that Allen would return to his wrestling roots to attack Roberson’s glaring weakness.
Allen has won 8 of his last 9 fights with 6 of those wins coming early with four submissions and two KOs. Four of those six finishes occurred in the first round. Allen has faced stiff competition since joining the UFC in 2019, with fights against Kevin Holland, Tom Breese, Kyle Daukaus, Sean Strickland and Karl Roberson, but he’s managed to come out victorious in all but one of those matches.
After seemingly falling in love with his striking in 2020, Allen appears to be content with returning to what got him here, which is his wrestling. After going 2 for 4 on takedowns in his first two UFC fights, Allen curiously didn’t even attempt a takedown in his next two matches. Apparently Sean Strickland knocking him out reminded Allen that he’s a wrestler and he talked about fighting smarter after that match. That was the only time Allen has ever been knocked out, so maybe he just needed that to remind him that wrestling isn’t so bad.
While Allen only has one loss in the UFC, he’s 16-4 as a pro with all four of his career losses coming against current UFC fighters. Prior to his recent KO loss to Sean Strickland, the only person to ever finish Allen was Trevin Giles, who submitted him in 2016 with a R2 Rear-Naked Choke in Allen’s third pro fight, when he was just 20 years old. His second career loss came in a 2017 LFA five round decision against Eryk Anders and his third career loss similarly came in a 2018 LFA five round decision against Anthony Hernandez.
Allen earned his spot in the UFC with a 2019 R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission win on DWCS. He impressively won his 2019 UFC debut, submitting Kevin Holland in R2. It took Allen all of 20 seconds to take Holland down for the first time in that fight—and he was taking Holland down before it was the fashionable thing to do.
He followed that up with a R1 KO against Tom Breese, before getting taken to a decision by newcomer Kyle Daukaus in a gritty fight between two guys with very similar fighting styles. Maybe that hard fought grappling decision had something to do with why Allen came into his next fight with a 100% striking game plan, but that clearly was a mistake as Sean Strickland knocked him out early in the second round.
A BJJ black belt, only two of Allen’s 16 career wins have required the judges. He has five wins by KO and nine submission victories. Nine of those finishes came in R1, four in R2 and just one in R3. Allen is a decent striker, but that clearly gets him in trouble at times as he knows just enough to be dangerous (to himself).
Fight Prediction:
Allen will have a 3” height and reach advantage.
Soriano has a major power advantage on the feet, so the key to this fight will be how the wrestling of these two measures up. We haven’t seen anyone try to grapple with Soriano at the UFC level, so it’s hard to gauge how that will play out, but we’d be surprised if Allen didn’t look to test it early. On the other side of this one, we expect Soriano to continue to use his wrestling defensively as he’ll try to force Allen into a boxing match. We’ve only seen Soriano fight beyond the first round once in his career and he definitely looked to be tiring in R2 against Jamie Pickett. So if Brendan Allen can simply survive the first round, his odds to win the fight should increase exponentially. Allen has fought to three five round decisions in his last 12 fights and we don’t expect cardio to be any sort of issue for him. So while Soriano always has a great chance to land a first round finish, look for Allen to take over if this fight makes it to the back half. As the odds indicate, this feels close to a coinflip, but we think the two most likely outcomes are either a Soriano R1 KO or an Allen decision win with the former being the more likely of the two. It’s also possible Allen is able to tire Soriano out and submit him.
Our three favorite bets here are “Soriano Wins by R1 KO” at +410, “Soriano Wins in R1” at +300, and “Allen Wins by Decision” at +460. Note: Some books have Soriano’s R1 line as high as +400, at which point that is clearly the bet to make.
DFS Implications:
After breaking the slate in both of his two UFC fights, Soriano projects to be incredibly popular at his affordable DFS price tag. It’s hard not to call him a R1 or bust fighter as he’s never finished an opponent beyond the first round, but he’s also only been out of the first round once. He doesn’t land enough volume to put up a big score in a decision win, although it’s possible he could still be useful as a value play with an average scoring decision if we get another slate where not many underdogs win. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1. It’s interesting to see his ITD and R1 lines so far apart considering 100% of his finishes (7) have come in the first round. If we were setting the lines they would be much closer, and his R1 win line is way too wide. Projected to be the most popular three round fighter on the slate, it will be essential to get this spot fight in DFS. If he gets a first round win and you fade him you’re essentially drawing dead at that point, however, the other way to look at this is that it presents a massive leverage opportunity if you can stomach going under the field and then holding your breath for five minutes. There’s far less to be gained by going over the field on him and when you compare his ownership to his ITD/R1 lines, it’s clear he’ll go over owned relative to his chances of returning value. So the smart play is to be under the field on him or at the very most, match the field if you want to take a more conservative approach. FanDuel nonsensically priced Soriano at just $15 so look for his ownership to reach ludicrous speed levels as he’ll be the first piece in most of the field’s lineups.
Allen has consistently scored well in his four UFC wins, with DK/FD scores of 111/122, 94/63, 109/115 and 102/113. His one decision win still scored decently on DraftKings (94 points), but failed to return value on FanDuel (63 points), which makes sense based on his grappling heavy fighting style. He does sometimes fall in love with his striking so you can’t always rely on him to come in with a wrestling-heavy game plan, but we seriously doubt he’ll want to stand and trade with Soriano here so look for him to try to get this fight to the ground early and often. That will likely leave him reliant on landing a finish to score well on FanDuel, while he has somewhat of a chance to score well in a decision on DraftKings. The fact that Soriano also has a wrestling background makes a dominant wrestling performance somewhat less likely, but we really don’t know how Soriano’s grappling stacks up to Allen’s so it’s hard to say with much certainty. Both guys in this fight have proven themselves to be consistent DFS producers and you’ll definitely want heavy exposure to both sides. The odds imply Allen has a 50% chance to win, a 33% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1. With FanDuel pricing Allen above Soriano, Allen should go far less owned and makes for an interesting leverage play. Unfortunately, it will also be harder for him to score well in a decision over there, so simply fading the fight and hoping for a lower scoring decision win will also provide a ton of leverage if you can stomach it.
Fight #5
Adrian Yanez
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Roaring in on a six fight winning streak with five of those ending in knockouts, Yanez has consistently impressed us since before he joined the UFC. His only loss in his last nine fights came in a five round split-decision in a 2018 LFA Championship bout against UFC fighter Miles Johns. His other two career losses were a 2017 split-decision and a 2014 decision in his second pro fight. So he’s never been finished and two of his three losses came in split-decisions.
Yanez punched his ticket to the UFC with a 39 second first round knockout win on DWCS in 2020 and then followed it up with another first round knockout in his October 2020 UFC debut, albeit over Victor Rodriguez who’s been knocked out in the first round in both of his UFC fights. Yanez is a very patient fighter who looks more like he has 10 years of UFC experience then 10 months. He’s an exceptional counter puncher and an all around great striker. He proved that again in his most recent fight as he methodically picked apart Gustavo Lopez for the first two rounds before finishing him 34 seconds into round three.
The son of a boxer, 27-year-old Yanez has great hands and has won eight of his 16 pro fights by KO. He also has two submission wins with a 2015 R1 Triangle Choke and a 2016 R3 Armbar. His other six fights all ended in decisions with him winning half of them. Half of his 10 career finishes have occurred in the first round, two in the second and three in the third. Yanez notably is a BJJ black belt, but is rarely forced to show that side of his game off. It will be interesting to see if he comes into this next matchup looking to show off a more well rounded game against what appears to be a one-dimensional brawling striker.
Randy Costa
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Randy Costa has never won a fight that lasted longer than 135 seconds, but he’s also only been in one fight that made it past that mark. Costa fights like the time clock is connected to a bomb under the Octagon and he has to defuse his opponents before the clock strikes zero.
He came into the UFC in 2019 after knocking out his first four opponents as a pro in 71 seconds or less. However, he then proceeded to lose his UFC debut from an early R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission. The loss came against oversized Bantamweight Brandon Davis. Prior to that fight, Davis had fought at both Lightweight (155 lb) and more recently Featherweight (145 lb) and after the fight, Joe Rogan asked him what he weighed at the moment and Davis said 160 lb. With that said, Davis went 2-5 in the UFC (1-4 at 145 lb & 1-1 at 135 lb) before being released following a pair of 2019 decision losses. Davis was interestingly able to choke Costa out despite having no hooks in as he fell off his back, so Costa does appear to be somewhat vulnerable to submissions, even when they’re thrown up with poor technique.
Costa bounced back with a R1 KO win against Boston Salmon in his next fight and didn’t seem too affected by the loss as he came out ready to brawl. However, keep in mind Salmon went 0-2 in the UFC, with both of those fights ending in R1 KOs, before being released following the loss to Costa.
Most recently, Costa knocked out Journey Newson just 41 seconds into the first round. Costa dropped Newson with a vicious head kick as Newson avoided a punch and the fight was quickly stopped as Costa began to tee off on his fallen opponent. Costa is great at finishing punching combinations with head kicks so that when his opponents duck to avoid a punch they get caught in the face with a kick. Newson is notably now 0-2 plus a No Contest in the UFC, although the No Contest was originally a 38 second R1 KO win that was overturned when he tested positive for THC.
All seven of Costa’s pro fights have ended in 6:12 or less and all six of his wins have ended in KO's in 2:15 or less. That seems like a streak that is bound to be broken sooner rather than later as he begins to face tougher competition, but it’s still impressive. We should point out that two of his four pre-UFC wins came up at 145 lb, before he dropped down to 135 lb for good when he joined the UFC. He also faced highly dubious competition prior to joining the UFC, who entered his fights with records of 0-4, 0-0, 5-9 and 0-1. Then he faced three straight opponents with losing UFC records, so he really hasn’t been tested at any level in terms of facing above average competition.
Fight Prediction:
Costa will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
This sets up as an exciting matchup between two 27-year-old bright up-and-coming prospects. Costa is the far more aggressive fighter who looks to end every fight in the opening minute, while Yanez is a patient counter striker who has no problem taking his time as he dismantles the opposition. Yanez is much more of a traditional boxer, while Costa is an unorthodox striker who throws shots from all angles, making him a tougher guy to prepare for. Costa is far less experienced, with less than half the number of pro fights compared to Yanez and has also faced a much lower level of competition over his career compared to Yanez. Costa also hasn’t shown any grappling skills or that he has the cardio to compete in a fight that lasts longer than a few minutes. So while he’s an exciting fighter with explosive striking, there are several unknowns with Costa that could potentially get exposed here. Yanez is a smart fighter and will have no problem testing both the grappling and cardio of Costa if he feels like he needs to. If Costa gives Yanez trouble on the feet early on, look for Yanez to potentially show off his black belt and take the fight to the mat. Just keep in mind we haven’t seen Yanez even attempt a takedown in his last three fights, but he was also never in trouble standing up in any of those. Costa looked very suspect defending the R2 Rear-Naked Choke in his debut, and despite his opponent having no hooks in and falling off to the side, Costa still tapped very quickly. So a Yanez submission win could be a sneaky play here. Either way, as long as Yanez can survive the opening three minutes, which we think he will, we like him to finish Costa in the first two rounds.
There are a lot of interesting lines here. Our favorite bet is “Fight Doesn’t Start R2” at +158, but we also like Yanez’s submission line at +1100 and his R2 submission line at +3800. “Costa Wins by R1 KO” at +950 is also far too wide, so we see value in that. Betting the fight ends in R2 at +310 or Yanez wins in R2 at +500 are also both interesting.
DFS Implications:
Yanez is coming off an impressive R3 KO performance, but an underwhelming DFS result. Despite landing a pair of knockdowns, he scored just 81 DraftKings points and 102 points on FanDuel in the near worst case scenario early R3 finish. Had the knockout come 28 seconds earlier, at the end of the second round, or a few minutes later in the third round, it would have scored significantly better. Yanez’s first round KO win in his UFC debut was good for 107 DraftKings points and 131 points on FanDuel, so clearly he has a solid ceiling. Capping his upside to some extent, he lands just slightly above average volume and hasn’t attempted a takedown in any of his last three fights. We’re also not really expecting Costa to shoot for any takedowns so at most Yanez would get one takedown defended, but more likely none. That’s not to say Yanez won’t score enough to crack winning lineups, but he’s less likely to be the highest scorer on the slate without a multi-knockdown first round finish or a quick win bonus on DraftKings. We still like Yanez to get a finish in the first two rounds, but he’ll also need to outscore the other top priced options to end up in winning tournament lineups, which even with an early win isn’t a guarantee. With all that said, this looks like a dream matchup for DFS production, and we think Yanez is a great play on both sites. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a slate-leading 49% chance to get a finish and a 20% chance it comes in R1.
Costa has been a DFS goldmine so far in his short UFC career, with none of his fights lasting longer than six and half minutes and his recent two KO victories occurring in 41 seconds and 135 seconds respectively. Those two victories were good for DK/FD totals of 127/114 and 119/140 and Costa’s fighting style makes him a candidate to lead any slate in scoring. He lands a frantic 7.88 significant strikes per minute (#1 on the slate), while absorbing 5.26 per minute (#3 on the slate). All six of his career wins have come by KO in a combined five minutes and 46 seconds. That’s good for a ridiculous average of 58 seconds per win. However, keep in mind all four of his pre-UFC wins came against opponents with losing records and both of his UFC wins came against fighters with losing UFC records. With that said, Costa is an explosive striker and has finished pretty much everyone they have put in front of him, so it will be interesting to see how he fares against a major step up in competition. If he does win, it would be very surprising if it doesn’t come early, which makes it easy to figure out your exposure for DFS. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #4
Miranda Maverick
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Increasing her winning streak to five with a pair of wins in her first two UFC fights, Maverick has made no secret of her desire to quickly reach the top of the Women’s Flyweight Division. She’s off to a good start with a R1 TKO due to a doctor stoppage in her October 2020 UFC debut followed by a decision win over Gillian Robertson most recently.
On her way to winning a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) over Robertson, Maverick led in significant strikes 71-27 and in total strikes 131-32 while landing three takedowns on four attempts with nearly five minutes of control time. Robertson did land a pair of takedowns on four attempts with close to three and half minutes of control time and was able to control Maverick on the ground for the majority of the second round, but Maverick finished the round strong and then took over in round three.
Prior to the win over Robertson, Maverick was credited with a R1 TKO due to a doctor stoppage following the first round. The win came against one-dimensional Armbar specialist Liana Jojua and it was somewhat surprising to see the first round play out entirely on the feet, but it made sense Maverick wanted to keep the fight standing considering she had the advantage there. Maverick busted open Jojua's nose from a heavy left elbow with just 30 seconds remaining in the round. Ironically, Maverick said before the fight that she was looking forward to going against another grappler after she had been paired with so many strikers in the past. Although looking back, maybe she meant she finally had someone she could easily beat up on the feet. With an insane pace, Maverick landed 49 significant strikes in five minutes of action and looked more powerful than she had in her previous fights.
Maverick is now 9-2 as a pro, with six of her wins coming early, including five submissions and the one TKO. Her other three career wins all went the distance, as did both of her losses (2018 & 2019). Still just 24 years old, Maverick somehow started her pro career at 115 lb before moving up to 125 lb in her third pro fight. Even at 125 lb she looks big for the division, so it’s sort of amazing she could ever make 115 lb, although she was only 19 at the time. Maverick has a well rounded game as she’s a solid striker and good wrestler, but we wouldn’t say she’s really elite at either right now. With that said, she does appear to be constantly improving, but it will be interesting to see how she fares when she faces another well rounded fighter.
Maycee Barber
6th UFC Fight (3-2)After attempting to Go-Go Gadget her way to victory from across the Octagon in her last fight, Barber quickly finds herself on a two fight skid after completely tearing her left ACL against Roxanne Modafferi in January 2020. Still just 23 years old, you would think Barber would be able to make a complete comeback from the injury, but you never know what lasting impact an injury like that will have. Barber did appear to start turning it on in the third round, so maybe she just needed to get a couple of rounds under her belt to feel comfortable striking again. Barber actually finished slightly ahead in significant strikes 40-38 while landing three takedowns on five attempts, but Grasso led in total strikes 95-50, while adding on a reversal, submission attempt and nearly six minutes of control time.
Barber also has a win over Gillian Robertson, but she was able to make much shorter work of Robertson than Maverick as she landed a first round TKO stoppage as she wailed on Robertson along the fence. That 2019 R1 KO win was Barber’s last win before suffering the knee injury in her next match. Barber landed 34 significant strikes in just over four minutes before the fight was stopped, while defending both of Robertson’s takedowns.
Barber then unfortunately completely tore her ACL early in her next fight, although somehow gutted through the injury to see a decision before taking 13 months off for surgery and recovery. Prior to that loss, Barber was 8-0 as a pro and 3-0 in the UFC. Seven of her eight career wins came early, with five straight KO victories after landing a pair of first round submissions wins in her first three pro fights. The only decision win of her career came in her second pro bout against UFC fighter Mallory Martin back in 2017. Only one of Barber’s five KO wins came in the first round, with the other two split across rounds two and three.
Barber throws heavy shots and mixes in knees and elbows to maximize damage. While she’s not out there starching ladies, her heavy striking flurries force referees to step in to save her opponents. She’s been good at really turning it on once she sees her opponents begin to shell up, so it will be interesting to see if she can regain that past success. She notably switched camps, moved to California and is now part of Team Alpha Male, so we expect to see some changes between her last fight and now.
Barber notably has an 80% takedown defense although it has rarely been tested, as she’s only faced three takedown attempts since joining the UFC—two from Gillian Robertson, who failed on both, and one from Modafferi who took down an injured Barber. For those of you trying to figure out how that equates to an 80% defense, she also defended both of her opponents attempts back on DWCS in 2018, which is factored into the official stats. So it’s hard to be overly confident in Barber’s takedown defense knowing how little it’s been tested, but based on the limited data we have it’s held up well in the past. Maverick should provide the toughest test to date, so we’ll know more after this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Barber will have a 2” height advantage but both fighters share a 65” reach.
Maverick has gone against a pair of one-dimensional grapplers in her first two UFC fights, so it’s not at all surprising that she’s found success on the feet. Now she’s going against the complete opposite style of fighter in Barber who is essentially a pure striker—yes Barber went 3 for 5 on takedowns in her last fight but she didn’t even attempt a takedown in her previous three matches. So anyways, it will be interesting to see how Maverick adjusts and if she looks as good against someone with a striking background as she did in her last two matches. We expect it will force Maverick into a more grappling heavy approach, but Barber notably has an 80% takedown defense, albeit one that has rarely been tested, so it will be interesting to see if Barber can keep the fight standing. We expect Maverick will at least find some success in getting the fight to the ground, as she looked strong taking Robertson down in her last fight, but we expect Barber to be far tougher to ground than Robertson was. If Barber can keep this fight standing, we think she has a good shot at pulling off the upset with either a mid to late round TKO stoppage or in a decision. However, if Maverick can get things to the ground, we think she can grind out a grappling heavy decision win with the potential to land a submission.
Neither one of these two have even been finished, so there’s a good chance this one ends in a decision. We’re just taking a few small stabs as we don’t like any of the safer bets. Our favorite dart throws are “Barber Wins by KO” at +500 and her R2 and R3 KO lines at +1700 and +2500 respectively. The other option to consider is “Maverick ITD” at +500.
DFS Implications:
Maverick did a good job of filling up the stat sheet in her last fight to score 99 DraftKings points in a decision win. However, that was only good for 87 points on FanDuel as her DK score was largely boosted by total strikes and control time. We expect her to be looking to grapple more in this matchup, so she again looks like a better DraftKings play compared to FanDuel if this goes the distance. Maverick’s last two fights were against one-dimensional grapplers, so essentially the opposite style of fighter compared to Barber. Therefore, expecting this fight to play out similarly to those last two seems like a mistake. Maverick had a major striking advantage in each of those prior two matches, but she won’t be afforded that luxury in this next one. While we’re not saying she’ll get dominated on the feet here, we do expect the striking exchanges to look very different. If Maverick is unable to get Barber down to the mat she could be in real trouble—at least assuming Barber has gotten over her fear of contact. In Barber’s recent decision loss, Grasso notably scored just 71 DraftKings points and 54 points on FanDuel. Barber has also never been finished in her career, which further detracts from Maverick’s upside, and she’s also only ever been taken down once. So in general she’s been a tough opponent to score well against. With Maverick coming off two high scoring wins in her only two UFC fights and Barber coming off two losses and looking terrible in her last match, we expect Maverick to be a popular play on both DFS sites, despite having a lower floor and ceiling than in her previous matches. The odds imply she has a 57% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Assuming Barber has figured out her arms aren’t 12 feet long, we expect her to look better on the feet here than she did in her last fight. That should force Maverick to look to grapple more, which will give Barber the chance to bolster her FanDuel score with takedowns defended. She has a solid 80% takedown defense, although that’s based on a very small sample size, so we wouldn’t fully trust it. In her three UFC wins, Barber has notched DK/FD totals of 105/126, 93/108 and 111/122. So she has consistently scored better on FanDuel, which makes sense because most of her strikes register as significant, all three wins came in the first two rounds and she doesn’t accrue much control time. One interesting thing to note with Barber is that despite all three of her UFC wins and her DWCS victory ending in KO/TKOs, she has never landed a knockdown in any of her last six fights. Her wins have generally come by stoppage as she unloads on her opponents on the fence, opposed to her knocking anyone off their feet. There are two ways to look at that—either it’s a pattern that limits her ceiling or she’s due for some variance to come her way. Barber could potentially still be useful in a decision win as a value play on FanDuel if she can put up a big striking total and defend multiple takedowns, but she’ll have a harder time scoring decently on DraftKings without a finish. The odds imply she has a 43% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #3
Darrick Minner
4th UFC Fight (1-2)After his previous 13 fights all ended in the first two rounds, Minner won just the third decision of his 37 pro fight career in his most recent match. That win came against Charles Rosa, who has never seen a fight he couldn’t make more boring. Despite having 37 pro fights to his name, Minner is still only 31 years old and just 2-1 in the UFC.
Despite his limited time in the UFC, 5 of his 11 career losses have come against fighters who are currently in the UFC and another came against a former UFC fighter. In his February 2020 short-notice UFC debut, Minner was submitted by grueling wrestler Grant Dawson in the second round via Rear-Naked Choke. Minner bounced back with a 52 second R1 Guillotine Choke Submission win over heavily favored UFC newcomer T.J. Laramie in his next match before winning a decision most recently over Rosa.
Of his 23 early career wins, 22 have come by submission, including 11 by Guillotine Choke with 10 of those coming in the first round. He also has five wins by Rear-Naked Choke, with four in R1, and two R1 Armbar victories. His other four submission wins were a R1 Kneebar, a pair of R1 Triangle Chokes and a R1 Shoulder Choke. He’s truly a submit or get submitted fighter, who’s only been to the third round four times in 37 pro fights, with all four of those ending in decisions.
Here are Minner’s 11 career losses: 2020 R2 Rear-Naked Choke (UFC debut), 2019 R1 Triangle Armbar, 2018 R2 KO, 2018 R2 Armbar, 2017 R1 Triangle Armbar, 2017 Decision, 2016 R2 Brabo Choke, 2014 R2 KO, 2014 R1 Armbar, 2013 R1 Triangle Choke and 2012 R1 Guillotine Choke. So to sum that up, he’s been knocked out twice, submitted eight times and has lost one decision. Four of his eight submission losses came by Armbar, including three in the first round. All 10 of his early losses came in the first 10 minutes, half of them in the first round.
Minner fought at 135 lb early in his pro career, but has been at 145 lb and 155 lb exclusively since 2017 and has settled in at 145 lb since 2019. Minner rarely makes for a boring fight and will relentlessly pursue submissions, throwing one Guillotine up after another and transitioning to Armbars in between.
Darren Elkins
24th UFC Fight (15-8)Coming off his first win in his last five fights, Elkins landed a third round submission against Luiz Eduardo Garagorri, who’s now 1-2 in the UFC and has been submitted in his last two fights. Elkins landed seven takedowns on a ridiculous 21 attempts in that match while accruing over seven and a half minutes of control time. While Garagorri actually led in significant strikes 36-32, Elkins led in total strikes 120-48.
Elkins’ last 15 fights have all made it out of the first round, with all but one of those seeing round three. To put that into context, Randy Costa would have to fight 221 times at his current average fight time to equal the same amount of Octagon time as Darren Elkins as accrued in his last 15 fights. Elkins’ last fight to end in R1 was a 2013 KO loss. Now 37 years old, leading up to his recent win Elkins hadn’t won a fight in almost three years. He’s is a tough guy to finish and five of his last six losses ended in decisions with the one exception ending with a 2018 R3 KO.
Elkins is 25-9 as a pro with his wins and losses split pretty evenly over decisions and finishes. He has eight KO wins, five submission victories and 12 decision wins. He’s only been submitted himself once, but he has been knocked out three times to go along with five decision losses.
With a wrestling background, Elkins averages 2.7 takedowns landed per 15 minutes, but has been pretty sporadic with his takedown numbers. He landed seven in his last fight but combined for just one in his two fights prior to that. He’s landed six or more takedowns in four of his 23 UFC fights, but has landed one or less in 15 of those 23 matches. Prior to his recent takedown explosion, his other eruption spots came in 2012, 2015 and 2016.
Fight Prediction:
Elkins will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
This matchup between two experienced wrestlers pairs up the grinding approach of Elkins against the explosive submissions of Minner. Elkins went 7 for 21 on takedowns in his last fight, so it will be interesting to see how he approaches this next one against a Guillotine specialist in Minner. The only time Elkins has ever been submitted came in a 2010 R1 Armbar against Charles Oliveira, but he’ll still need to be cautious taking Minner to the mat. That could force Elkins to keep this fight standing so we wouldn’t be surprised if this turned into a striking battle as fights often do when you pair up two grapplers. However, that’s certainly not always the case and we’d be surprised if Minner was content with a pure kickboxing match even if Elkins is. With just one KO on his record, but 22 submission wins, Minner is far more of a submission specialist than Elkins and we don’t see him abandoning that here. Look for him to constantly hunt for submissions on the mat, with Elkins using his wrestling more for defensive purposes. It’s always tough to predict how grappling matches will play out, but we still like Minner’s chances to land a submission, albeit less than normal. We could also see Elkins pulling off the upset, and think regardless of who wins this fight most likely ends in a submission.
When Darrick Minner fights, you play his R1 submission line, which is habitually too wide. It checks in at +1000 this week despite the fact that 20 of his 26 career wins have ended with first round submissions. You can also consider his R2 submission line at +1300 since his only other two submission wins both ended in the second round. We wish it was a little wider, but we also like “Fight Ends in Submission” at +190 as a hedge as 8 of his 11 career losses have also ended in submissions, as have Elkins’ last two wins.
DFS Implications:
Minner was still able to score well in his recent grappling heavy decision win as he totalled 111 DraftKings points and 101 points on FanDuel. That was nearly a best case scenario for him, however, as he completely filled up the stat sheet with a knockdown, 45 significant strikes, 96 total strikes, four takedowns, three submission attempts and over 12 and half minutes of control time. It’s hard to go anywhere but down from there without a finish, but considering only 10.8% of Minner’s fights have gone the distance it would be surprising to see consecutive fights end in decisions. Minner’s first UFC win took just 52 seconds and was good for 122 DraftKings points and 117 FanDuel points, so he’s scored well in both of his wins regardless of how they play out. Working against him, Elkins has only been submitted once in his 34 fight career and that came in his last fight at 155 lb against Charles Oliveira in 2010. Both of these guys are experienced wrestlers, which sometimes results in more striking than we might expect going in, but we still expect Minner to constantly be hunting for submissions. It’s definitely not a great matchup for him to get a finish, but Minner’s fighting style is perfect for DFS and you always want to have a decent amount of exposure to him anytime he fights. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 32% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Elkins is coming off his first win in his last five fights, but put up a massive 124 DraftKings points and 116 points on FanDuel. While Elkins lost his four fights prior to his recent win, he has shown a decent floor and high scoring ceiling in his earlier career wins with DraftKings totals of 93, 96, 82, 124 and 140 in his other five most recent victories. We saw Elkins put up a massive 140 DraftKings points and 127 points on FanDuel back in 2016 when he went against another wrestler in Chas Skelly, so he’s proven he can excel in these types of matchups. However, Elkins is now 37 years old, so that should also be factored in. He looks like a low floor, high ceiling DFS play with a wide range of potential outcomes so you’ll definitely want to have some level of exposure in this pace-up matchup that has a great chance to end in a submission win for either fighter. The odds imply Elkins has a 42% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Kyler Phillips
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Phillips had been scheduled to face Raphael Assuncao here, but Assuncao withdrew and was replaced by Paiva about a month before the fight—so still with plenty of time to prepare.
Coming off a decision win against easily the toughest opponent he’s faced in his career, Phillips defeated the #14 ranked Song Yadong in a unanimous 29-28 decision. That was the first time Phillips has even lost a round since joining the UFC. Yadong actually finished ahead in significant strikes 67-59 and in total strikes 89-69, but Phillips landed three takedowns on five attempts, while Yadong didn’t attempt any. Yadong doubled up Phillips’ striking in the third round, but Phillips won the first two rounds to take the decision. Phillips talked about how he had recently been awarded his black belt following the fight, and he seems like the type of guy that likes to show off new tricks, just something to keep in mind going into this next fight.
Phillips originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2017, but despite landing a 46 second R1 KO victory he was not awarded a contract. Following the appearance on the show, Phillips suffered his first and only career loss in a 2018 split decision. He then landed another first round knockout and at that point the UFC was ready to give him a shot.
He came into the UFC in February 2020 and won a decision in his debut against Gabriel Silva, who entered the fight 0-1 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since. Phillips looked solid in the fight, outlanding Silva 89-31 in significant strikes, landing a pair of takedowns, nearly six minutes of control time and out-scrambling the grappler on the ground as he cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision win.
Following the win, Phillips had been scheduled to fight Danaa Batgerel in October 2020, but Batgerel withdrew and UFC newcomer Cameron Else stepped in on short notice. Phillips nearly ended the fight late in the first round, but Else was saved by the bell. The rescue was short lived, however, as Phillips finished Else less than a minute into the second round with ground and pound.
Phillips is now 9-1 as a pro with six of his wins coming early—five by KO and one by submission. The first five finishes of his career all impressively came in the first round, while the most recent one occurred less than a minute into round two.
A Jiu Jitsu brat, Kyler started “training” at a ridiculous three years old when his dad got him involved with the Gracie academy. He now trains out of Phoenix, Arizona at the same gym as Sean O’Malley. Phillips has alternated decisions and finishes over his last eight fights and is now coming off a decision for what it’s worth. He’s talked about how he wants to put on good shows and hunt for KOs, so it seems like he might push a little harder for a finish following a decision.
Going into his last fight, Phillips had yet to notch a victory against anyone with a UFC win on their record, but he proved he belongs as he held his own against one of the top strikers in the division. Now he gets an easier opponent and we expect him to look even better.
Raulian Paiva
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Moving back up to 135 lb after starting off his UFC career 2-2 at 125 lb, Paiva spent most of his pre-UFC career competing at Bantamweight (135 lb). Paiva originally dropped down to 125 lb in 2018 when he went on DWCS and stayed there up until now. He had been scheduled to face David Dvorak in May, but was hospitalized due to a botched weight cut and was forced to withdraw. He also withdrew from his fight prior to that, and hasn’t looked great at 125 lb when he has made it inside the Octagon, so moving back up to 135 lb makes sense.
Coming off a pair of wins following back-to-back losses in his first two UFC fights, Paiva has been involved in a ton of close decisions. Surprisingly, he was awarded a UFC contract with a split-decision win on DWCS in 2018, and then followed it up with a split-decision loss against Kai Kara France in his 2019 UFC debut. Next, he lost from an unfortunate first round doctor stoppage TKO due to a cut around his eye against Rogerio Bontorin. That fight ended so quickly it’s a little unfair to even really weigh it as a loss, but obviously that’s how it goes down on his record.
He bounced back with a R2 KO of his own against a terrible Mark De La Rosa, who’s now lost four straight fights, and then Paiva most recently won a close unanimous decision against Zhalgas Zhumagulov in a fight that easily could have and we think should have gone the other way. Zhumagulov outlanded Paiva 66-52 in significant strikes, 73-56 in total strikes and 2-0 on takedowns. Paiva did land a violent groin shot midway through the third round (and again as the round ended), so maybe the judges awarded him points for that. It looked like Paiva won the first round, while Zhumagulov won the last two, but the judges didn’t see it that way. Paiva led 21-19 in significant strikes in the first round, while Zhumagulov came out ahead 27-16 and 20-15 in the later two rounds. Zhumagulov also landed a takedown in the first and second rounds. Paiva notably missed weight by 3 lb for that fight, so making 125 lb was an ongoing problem for him.
While Paiva has one TKO loss on his record, that was more of a technicality as the fight was stopped abruptly midway through the first round from an unlucky gash to his face. The only other time he’s been finished in his career was a 2015 R3 Anaconda Choke Submission in his seventh pro fight. He now holds a 20-3 pro record, with 13 of his wins going the distance. While he does have four knockouts and three submission victories to his name, 13 of his 20 career wins have ended in decisions.
In his four UFC fights, Paiva has yet to land a takedown, although he hasn’t attempted any since going 0 for 4 in his debut. He did land one takedown on DWCS back in 2018. On the other side of things, three of his four UFC opponents were each able to land two takedowns on him, although those did come on 23 attempts. He also defended 9 of 10 takedown attempts on DWCS, which boosts his takedown defense even further. So while he does officially have an 80% takedown defense, all three of his UFC opponents to attempt any takedowns all landed a pair. Also notable, those three UFC opponents hold career takedown accuracies of just 23%, 43% and 21%, so Paiva’s listed takedown defense should be taken with a grain of salt. His striking volume is around average, and he’s failed to land more than 67 significant strikes in any of his UFC fights.
While Paiva has just one KO/TKO loss on his record and that was from a doctor stoppage due to an unlucky cut above his eye, he really hasn’t faced any KO threats since joining the UFC. He made his debut against Kai Kara-France, who up until his recent KO win had gone nine straight fights without knocking anybody out and is generally a decision machine. Next Paiva faced Rogerio Bontorin, who is a submission specialist, and then he went up against Mark De La Rosa, who has just one KO win in his career and has now lost four straight UFC fights. Most recently Paiva went up against another decision machine in Zhalgas Zhumagulov, who had been to seven straight decisions before his recent submission win.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’8” but Phillips will have a 3” reach advantage.
Paiva hasn’t faced any real KO threats since joining the UFC and easily could be 1-3 if he hadn’t stolen a decision against Zhalgas Zhumagulov. And sure he had a close decision go against him in his UFC debut versus Kai-Kara France, so maybe 2-2 is a fair record, but anyone saying he could easily be 3-1 is ignoring his last fight where Paiva was significantly outlanded in the final two rounds after narrowly starting out ahead in strikes in round one. Paiva was also taken down twice and landed multiple groin strikes in the fight, so it’s hard to make an argument that he won outside of the fact that the judges saw it that way. Anyways, while moving up a weight class will make Paiva’s weight cut easier, it also means he’ll now be facing bigger, stronger competition. We don’t see the move benefiting Paiva in this fight, but it does add some level of uncertainty in terms of how he’ll look. With that said, we expect Phillips to dominate this fight from the start and like him to land an early finish in the first half of the match.
Our favorite two bets here are Phillip’s ITD line at +260 and his R1 Win line at +650. We also like his R2 Win line at +1000 and his R1 and R2 KO lines at +1000 and +1600.
DFS Implications:
Despite winning all three of his UFC fights, Phillips has underperformed his DFS potential and we’ve yet to see a ceiling performance out of him. He averages 5.32 significant strikes landed per minute and 2.9 takedowns per 15 minutes on five attempts. Of his nine career wins, six have come early (66.67%), but he’s only landed one finish in his three UFC fights and that came in a potentially worst case scenario early R2 win. He just went up against a top 15 opponent who’s only been finished once in 22 pro fights, but will now face an easier matchup against a fighter who’s 2-2 in the UFC, easily could be 1-3, and is moving up from 125 lb to 135 lb. Everything seems to be coming together for Phillips here. In his three UFC fights, Phillips has put up DK/FD totals of 73/73, 98/106, and 91/102. So he scored decently in his first two UFC fights before recently putting up just an average score in a decision. While Paiva hasn’t been an easy guy to finish, he also hasn’t really been tested and this looks like a potential explosion spot for Phillips. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Paiva scored just 53 DraftKings points in his recent decision win and likely needs a finish to be useful here even at his cheap price tag. Further confirming that, he only scored 31 points in his-split decision loss in his UFC debut, which would have still been good for just 61 points had it gone his way. With no grappling stats to boost his scores, he’s entirely reliant on striking to score points and he hasn’t landed more than 67 significant strikes in any of his four UFC matches. Now Paiva is moving up a weight class and going against an opponent who’s never finished in his career. This looks like a terrible spot for him to succeed and we have essentially no interest in playing him. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and an 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #1
Cory Sandhagen
9th UFC Fight (7-1)Coming off back-to-back highlight reel KOs against a pair of aging fighters who have both now lost 3 of their last 4 fights, Sandhagen bounced back from a June 2020 R1 Submission loss to Aljamain Sterling with a second round Spinning Wheel Kick KO of Marlon Moraes followed by a 28 second Flying Knee first round murder of Frankie Edgar. Sandhagen’s last three fights have lasted a combined seven minutes and 59 seconds, while his two prior to that both went the full 15 minutes.
Sandhagen has won 9 of his last 10 fights, with his only UFC loss coming against Aljamain Sterling. Sandhagen originally joined the UFC in 2018, fresh off a pair of first round knockout wins in the LFA. He kept that knockout streak going with back-to-back R2 KO wins in his first two UFC fights, followed by a R1 Armbar Submission win in his third UFC match. He then won decisions against John Lineker, who’s still never been knocked out in 43 pro fights, and Raphael Assuncao, who’s only been knocked out once in the last decade. Following those two decisions, Sandhagen was submitted by Sterling who was able to almost immediately take Sandhagen’s back and choke him out.
That submission loss remains the only time Sandhagen has been finished in his career, with his only other career loss coming in a 2017 decision to Jamall Emmers in the LFA. Of his 14 career wins, nine have ended early with six KOs and three submissions. All three of his career submission wins have occurred in the first round, but two of those notably occurred in his first three pro fights. Six of his last seven early wins have come by KO, split evenly between the first two rounds. All nine of his career finishes have transpired in under nine minutes and eight of his last 10 fights have ended in the first two rounds with the other two ending in three-round decisions. This will be Sandhagen’s second career fight scheduled to go five rounds, with the first being when he knocked out Moraes in the second round. So Sandhagen has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes.
Sandhagen fought his first pro fight at 135 lb in 2015, but then moved up to 145 lb for his next eight matches from 2016 to 2018. Following his 2018 UFC debut at 145 lb, Sandhagen dropped back down to 135 lb where he has stayed since. He now has identical 7-1 records at both Featherweight and Bantamweight.
T.J. Dillashaw
17th UFC Fight (12-4)Looking to mount a comeback following a serious 2-year suspension when he tested positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) in early 2019, Dillashaw will now need to completely reprove himself at 35 years old.
Dillashaw originally won the UFC Bantamweight belt back in 2014 against Renan Barao and then successfully defended it twice against Joe Soto and then in a rematch against Barao. All three of those fights ended with late KOs, with the first two coming in the 5th round and the other occurring in found four. However, in his fourth UFC title fight Dillashaw lost a split decision to Dominick Cruz in 2016. After losing the belt, Dillashaw won a pair of decisions against Raphael Assuncao and John Lineker (three years before Sandhagen won a pair of decisions over those two fighters). While comparisons there are a little unfair considering Sandhagen faced those two later in their careers, Sandhagen outlanded Lineker 120-106 in significant strikes and 2-1 on takedowns and outlanded Assuncao 62-45 in significant strikes while trailing 0-4 in takedowns. Dillashaw outlanded Lineker 71-38 in significant strikes and 5-1 on takedowns and outlanded Assuncao 64-49 in significant strikes while leading 1-0 in takedowns.
While Dillashaw was working his way back into contention, Cruz lost the belt to Cody Garbrandt in 2016, so while Dillashaw was given an opportunity to win back the belt following the pair of decision wins, it would not come in a rematch against Cruz. Instead the Garbrandt/Dillashaw feud would play out on the biggest stage and Dillashaw reclaimed the belt with a second round KO victory in November 2017. They ran it back nine months later and Dillashaw won even faster, knocking out Garbrandt in the first round of the rematch in August 2018.
In their first fight, Garbrandt actually dropped Dillashaw at the end of the first round and looked to have him badly hurt as Dillashaw stumbled back to his corner. However, Dillashaw turned the tables in the second round as he dropped Garbrandt with a head kick 90 seconds in. Garbrandt was able to quickly recover, but that clearly represented a change in momentum. A minute later Dillashaw connected with a clean right hook to the chin of Garbrandt as the two stood and traded. Garbrandt was badly hurt as he dropped to the canvas and Dillashaw jumped on top and finished the fight with ground and pound.
In the August 2018 rematch, Dillashaw made even shorter work of Garbrandt, knocking him out late in the first round. Garbrandt got overly aggressive midway through the round and made the same mistake he had in their first match thinking he could win by chaotically trading at close distance. And once again Dillashaw was the one left standing as he dropped Garbrandt with another right hand. Garbrandt was able to briefly return to his feet, before Dillashaw knocked him down again 30 seconds later. Garbrandt was completely out of it at that point and running purely on survival instincts, but he did stagger back to his feet as Dillashaw continued to rain down punches and Herb Dean then stopped the fight on the feet.
After winning and then defending the Bantamweight (135 lb) belt against Garbrandt, Dillashaw set his sights on winning a second belt as he dropped down to Flyweight (125 lb) to take on Henry Cejudo in January 2019. That experiment didn’t end well, as Dillashaw got knocked out in just 32 seconds and then got popped for PEDs afterwards.
Dillashaw is now 16-4 as a pro, with 11 of those wins coming early, including eight KOs and three submissions. All three of those submissions came in the first round, but two were in his first three pro fights in 2010 and the other was back in 2012. His last seven finishes have all been by KO. He’s been knocked out twice, initially in the first round of the Ultimate Fighter Finale against John Dodson in his 2011 UFC debut and then most recently by Henry Cejudo in the first round of his most recent fight. His other two career losses both went the distance, with a 2013 three-round split-decision loss to Raphael Assuncao and then another split-decision loss in 2016 against Dominick Cruz for the Bantamweight belt. While Dillashaw’s last two fights have both ended in the first round, his nine prior to that all saw the second round with eight making it to R3 and four going to the championship rounds. So historically, his fights typically either end really quickly or really late and only 2 of his 20 fights have ended in round two and only one has ended in round three.
Dillashaw has already worked his way to the top, won the belt, defended the belt, lost the belt, worked his way back up to the top, won the belt again and defended the belt again. However, after being stripped of the belt following his suspension and now 35 years old, it’s harder to see a third trip to the mountain top in his future. The UFC loves giving guys like this shortcuts to title fights, but he’ll still have to beat Sandhagen for that to happen.
Fight Prediction:
Sandhagen will have a 5” height advantage and 3” reach advantage. He’s also six years younger than the 35-year-old Dillashaw.
We expect Dillashaw to struggle with the size and length of Sandhagen, which could force him to try and wrestle more. While Dillashaw hasn’t landed a takedown in his last three fights, he landed seven in the three fights prior to that and has a wrestling background. Sandhagen notably owns just a 30% takedown defense and looks more vulnerable on the mat than on the feet. With that said, Dillashaw is still more of a striker than a grappler and hasn’t submitted anyone since 2012, so while on paper that approach could make sense, we’re not expecting Dillashaw to come in and all of a sudden be a dominant grappler. Sandhagen has also shown he can be dangerous on the mat, just go back and watch him throw up one submission after the next against Mario Bautista back in 2019. We thought Dillashaw looked hittable and somewhat suspect when he was taking PEDs, so now presumably clean and with two years worth of ring rust looming over him we like Sandhagen to knock him out early.
Our favorite bet here is “Sandhagen Wins by R1 KO” at +800. The only other line we’re playing is his R2 KO line at +950. If you like Dillashaw to pull off the upset, which we don’t, you can consider his R1, R4 and R5 KO lines at +1000, +1900 and +2600 respectively.
DFS Implications:
Sandhagen averages the second highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 6.85 per minute, but has only landed four takedowns in his eight fight UFC career and doesn’t have any in his last four matches, so he relies on striking and finishes to score well. He went through a four fight stretch where he struggled to put up a big score going into his recent 28 second first round KO win, but he does have a pair of second round KOs earlier in his career that scored 112 and 131 DraftKings points and 115 and 141 points on FanDuel, so he’s shown he’s capable of scoring well with a second round finish. However, his most recent second round finish came early in the round and he scored just 95 DraftKings points and 110 points on FanDuel. He followed it up with an immediate 28 second R1 KO that was good for 126 DK points and 113 points on FanDuel. If this does end up going the distance, Sandhagen would likely finish with a ton of striking volume and potentially a handful of takedowns defended, so we would still expect him to score well and with his high-volume striking there would always be the potential for an absolute striking explosion. The most likely way he fails to score well in a win would be with an early R2 or R3 finish that lacks the volume to outscore the other high priced fighters—similar to what he did against Marlon Moraes. With that out of the way, we like Sandhagen’s chances to land a first round KO and put up a big score here. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 46% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Dillashaw has scored 99 or more DraftKings points in 7 of his last 8 wins (130, 99, 117, 64, 108, 125, 128 and 100) with the one exception coming in a three round decision, which is irrelevant here. He lands a respectable 5.37 significant strikes per minute and adds on 1.7 takedowns per 15 minutes, despite owning just a 37% takedown accuracy. At his cheap DraftKings price tag, it’s hard to see him winning this fight and not ending up in the optimal lineup, which makes figuring out your exposure pretty simple—just match it to whatever you think the chances are of him winning the fight. According to the oddsmakers, that’s 37% but we think his actual chances are somewhat lower. The odds also imply he has a 26% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
We expect the winner of this main event to put up a big score barring an early R2 or R3 win without much volume behind it, so it makes sense to stack it on DraftKings in low-risk/cash contests and start most of your tournament lineups with one of these fighters.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma